niedziela, 10 kwietnia 2022

Vexev - Frater Superior (Under the Sign of Garazel Productions 2022)

Uff, od czego tu zacząć, poza faktem, że płyta mną pozamiatała już przy pierwszym odsłuchu? Teraz katuję ją już nie wiem, który raz i nie mam dość. "Frater Superior" to już czwarte demo włoskiego Vexev i pierwsze, jakiego dane mi było posłuchać (ale będę nadrabiał, bo jest co!). Zespół tworzy surowy black metal, z kapitalnymi klawiszowymi tłami (robią tu klimat jakich mało). Śmiem twierdzić, że są tu tak samo ważnym elementem jak gitary, idą obie sekcje w parze niczym lita ściana dźwięku. Album jest w swej estetyce okultystyczny, rytualny, pełen diabelskiej, mistycznej aury. "Frater Superior" brzmi jak black metalowa ścieżka do jakiegoś obrzędu odbywającego się w zapomnianej świątyni, grocie, w mroku, przy świetle świec, unoszącym się w powietrzu zapachu krwi i kadzideł. Bardzo spodobało mi się jak zespół połączył potężną sekcję rytmiczną, całość instrumentarium podbił pogłosem - nadając materiałowi echa.przestrzenności, a wokal zaserwował surowy, trzeszczący jak z jakieś bardzo starej demówki, kiedy dostęp do super sprzętu był dla zespołów z podziemia nieosiągalny. Współgra to ze sobą niesamowicie! Mamy kwiecień i z tego, co słyszałem, to na tę chwilę nie pojawił się żaden materiał w ramach black metalu, który tak bardzo by mi siadł i tak mnie zaczarował. Prześcignęli nawet Akathartos, który również oceniłem bardzo wysoko. Czekam na coś równie dobrego, jeżeli nie, to jest to dla mnie płyta roku w temacie! Kropka!


English translation:

Uff, where to start, apart from the fact that the album just blew me away from the first listening? Now I'm playing it for the x-time already and I can't get enough. "Frater Superior" is the fourth demo of the Italian Vexev and the first one that I had the opportunity to listen to (but I will make up for it, because it's totally worth it!). The band creates raw black metal, with great keyboard backgrounds (they create an atmosphere that is hard to find). I dare say that they are just as important here as the guitars, both sections go hand in hand like a solid wall of sound. The album is occult, ritualistic in its aesthetics, full of devilish, mystical aura. "Frater Superior" sounds like a black metal score to some ritual taking place in a forgotten temple, cave, in the dark, by the light of candles, with the scent of blood and incense floating in the air. I really liked how the band combined a powerful rhythm section, boosted the whole instrumentation with reverb - giving the material an echo of space, and the vocal served raw, crackling like from some very old demo, when access to good quality equipment was unaccesible for underground bands. It works together givig an amazing experience! It's April and from what I heard, at the moment there is no black metal material that would appeal to much that much and enchant me to the bone. They even surpassed Akathartos, which I also rated very highly. I'm waiting for something equally good, if not, this is the album of the year for me in the subject of black metal! I have spoken!





piątek, 8 kwietnia 2022

Hermodr - Tidens Tand (Wolfspell Records 2022)

Nie jest nowością, że szwedzki Hermodr jest projektem bardzo płodnym. To jeden z tych zespołów, które w ramach black metalu mogą pochwalić się naprawdę bogatą dyskografią. Raft tworzy muzykę Hermodr w całości sam i niemal co roku wypuszcza nowy album, lub przynajmniej kilka EPek lub kompilacji. Słychać, że czerpie on sporo inspiracji z twórczości Burzum, Summoning i stoi ramię w ramię z równie kreatywnymi zespołami tworzącymi atmosferyczny black metal, jak Kalmankantaja, Eldamar, Lustre, Spell of Dark czy Nyktophilia. To wszystko kontynuowane jest na nowej płycie "Tidens Tand". Muzyka na tym albumie to istny, lity pejzaż dźwięków malujących przestrzenie wypełnione pięknem, majestatem, acz również mrokiem i tajemniczością otaczającej nas natury (nie bez przyczyn każde wydawnictwo Hermodr zdobią takie, a nie inne okładki). Utwory płyną jeden za drugim, budując klimat tak charakterystyczny dla tego zespołu. Są nastrojowe, utrzymane w wolnych i średnich tempach, czasem mniej lub bardziej oszczędne w w formie, ale wciąż bogate w emocje, nastrój i niesamowite, nostalgiczne/refleksyjne melodie. Dodatkowo, poza lekko wampirycznym wokalem Rafna, usłyszymy też żeńskie wokale, urozmaicające tu i ówdzie niektóre kompozycje. Mimowolnie przypomniały mi trochę to, co działo się na płycie "The Stargate" Mortiis, ale nie ma tu ich aż tyle i nie są aż tak, nazwijmy to, nachalne. Proporcje zostały zachowane, nie usłyszymy ich w każdym utworze. Wszystko ma tu swoje miejsce i zadanie. Cóż, ja wracam do ponownego słuchania "Tidens Tand", a wam szczerze polecam sięgnięcie po ten krążek. Kawał pięknej muzy!



English translation:

It is not new that Swedish Hermodr is a very prolific project. This is one of those black metal bands that can boast of a really rich discography. Raft creates Hermodr's music entirely by himself and almost every year releases a new album, or at least a few EPs or compilations. You can hear that he draws a lot of inspiration from the works of Burzum, Summoning and stands shoulder to shoulder with equally creative bands creating atmospheric black metal, such as Kalmankantaja, Eldamar, Lustre, Spell of Dark or Nyktophilia. All this is continued on the new album "Tidens Tand". The music on this album is a real, solid landscape of sounds painting spaces filled with beauty, majesty, but also with darkness and mystery of the nature that surrounds us (not without reason, every Hermodr release is decorated with such and not other covers). The songs flow one after the another, building the atmosphere so characteristic of this band. They are romantic, slow and medium tempos, sometimes more or less thrifty in form, but still rich in emotions, mood and amazing, nostalgic/reflective melodies. In addition, apart from Raft's slightly vampiric vocals, we will also hear female ones, diversifying some compositions here and there. They involuntarily reminded me a bit of what happened on the album "The Stargate" by Mortiis, but there aren't that many of them here and they are not so, let's call it, intrusive. The proportions were kept, we won't hear them in every track. Everything has its place and purpose here. Well, I am going back to listening to "Tidens Tand" again, and I sincerely recommend you to reach for this album. A piece of beautiful music!




środa, 6 kwietnia 2022

Corrupter - Descent Into Madness (Godz Ov War Productions 2022)

Jeżeli ktoś z was jest spragniony ciężkiego, smolistego death metalu, to trafił pod właściwy adres i na właściwą płytę! Debiutancki "Descent Into Madness" francuskiego Corrupter (z muzykami znanymi już z Morgue) to death metal starej szkoły z gatunku tych ciężkich, gęstych, dusznych pełnych wszelakiego truchła i makabry. Fani takich zespołów jak Mortician, Incantation, Dead Congregation, Vomitory czy Funebrarum będą tu mieli czego posłuchać. Poza brutalnością, materiał minuta po minucie odkrywa przed słuchaczem swoją niepokojącą, ponurą aurę, niczym z jakiegoś horroru. Death metal w wykonaniu Corrupter ma też swoją głębię, tzw. drugi plan, na którym sporo się dzieje i z każdym kolejnym odsłuchem widać, że nie jest to tylko brutalny, zatęchły death metal, a zespół żongluje zarówno nowymi, jaki i starymi rozwiązaniami. Jest tu dużo zwolnień, przyspieszeń, trochę perkusyjnych łamańców, ale płyta zachowuje we wszystkich swych składnikach pożądany balans, a całość podbija solidne, mocne brzmienie. Materiał ma ewidentny potencjał i z tego, co w tym roku w ramach death metalu słyszałem, stawiam go bardzo wysoko. Wciągający, świadomy, dojrzały. Panowie wiedzą, co robią i robią to dobrze."Decent Into Madness" ma realne szanse być w podziemiu dostrzeżonym i zaskarbić sobie miejsce wśród najlepszych debiutów tego roku.

https://corrupter.bandcamp.com/

https://godzovwar.com/

English translation:

If any of you are hungry for heavy, dense death metal, you've come to the right address and to the right album! "Descent Into Madness", the debut of French Corrupter (with musicians already known from Morgue) is an oldschool death metal from those heavy, dense, stuffy genre full of all kind of corpses and macabre. Fans of bands such as Mortician, Incantation, Dead Congregation, Vomitory or Funebrarum will have something to listen to here. In addition to brutality, minute by minute the material reveals its disturbing, gloomy aura to the listener, like from some horror movie. Death metal performed by Corrupter also has its depth, the so-called the background, where a lot is going on and with each subsequent listening you can see that it is not only brutal, musty death metal, and the band mixes both new and old solutions. There are a lot of slowdowns, fast tempos, some drum breaks, but the album maintains the desired balance in all its components, and the whole thing is enhanced by a solid, strong sound. The material has a clear potential and from what I heard this year in death metal, I grade it very highly. Immersive, aware, mature. These guys know what they are doing and they do it well. "Decent Into Madness" has a real chance to be noticed in the underground and win a place among the best debuts of this year.



niedziela, 3 kwietnia 2022

"(...) one guy put on KREATOR´s „Endless Pain“ CD. This was like a rebirth!" - a "Stormbringer" retrospective interview with Okkulto (ex Desaster, Eurynomos)

1. Hi there, Okkulto! I’m glad that you are to answer a few questions. Want to move back to the past, to Desaster’s “Stormbringer” minialbum. You were after the release of “A Touch of Medieval Darkness”, Thorim left the band replaced by Tormentor. How do you recall that time between these two releases?

Well let´s got back with the time capsule to the years ‘95-´96. I think this was an important time for the band. We got more and more gigs, Tormentor had returned on drums. He had improved a lot casue it was always his dream to play in DESASTER on a permanent basis. So we became a real unity, doing also a lot of things together in the spare time, aside from band things. When we came to gigs, we appeared as a real serious unity, not some of this childish weekend-warriors, which were around at this time. Black Metal had become a huge trend meanwhile. There where countless zines and bands popping out each week. Even the big magazines couldn´t ignore it anymore. But every little youth band was trying to jump on that. We were really pissed off by that, cause to us BM had to be dangerous, wild and extraordinary, not every mothers darling. So we were writing more material which was a bit anti-trend containing less „Black“ but more „Metal“, haha. Stronger rooted in the 80´s glorious Thrash Metal times.

2. “Stormbringer” might be considered as a bridge between the first and the second album, your started to shape your original sound, your vocals changed a bit as well. Could you share some memories on the process of writing this material and influences that accompanied you back then?

Yes, as I said, we were really fed up with the whole trendshit. One could publish some evil photos in the mags, but when you came to gigs, seeing the guys in reality, you had a good laugh. So we wanted to distance us from all that money-printing train which was rolling faster and faster. We just wanted to produce some dark underground metal songs. On a meeting with some friends from the HELLBANGERS one guy put on KREATOR´s „Endless Pain“ CD. This was like a rebirth! in a moment there were 20 guys standing in a circle banging their heads off during the whole album from the first to the last song. We were all electrified by this old nostalgic feeling. From this moment we started to re-discover many of the old records trying to soak up the feeling of this pioneers of the mid-80´s, like when they were in their youth. Also going to many 2nd hand markets, buying rarities or some more obscure stuff from that period. This all influenced our songwriting and thinking for the next years. We always tried to distance us from all the trendriders and typical new BM-outcomes.

3. The cover art of the vinyl and CD is probably the most iconic when it comes to Desaster and matching the atmosphere of your music – heavy and furious metal combined with a unique medieval touch. Who came up with the idea to use this piece of art?

It was always difficult to find a nice cover, fitting straight to the titles. In this case I went through some book stores, searching for medieval/historical stuff which could reflect the title. When I saw it, I knew directly that this would be what I was looking for. Showed it to the other guys and they also liked it from the first moment as well. Still a good choice, as you said, representing our musical theme very good. I prefer simple but effective covers with not too much details. So this one here could also represent the energy of our music very good. 

4. You seemed to be the one in the band who was more into black metal, the same with Odin. Am I right? What bands from that genre were and are the most favourite for you, the ones that had the most significant impact on you? You and Odin were the ones that used corpsepaint. 

Haha, this is a question often asked. It just came from our demo times, I guess. The painting was just not Infernal´s „thing“ so to say, while Odin and me were very, very deeply into black in the early days, so it gave us a special aura, a special feeling. We did it also at some specials out there at some meetings in the wilderness. Later it became something like a trademark that half of the band is painted, half not. You could see it also as representing our special mixture of BM and oldschool Thrash Metal. But the other members also listened to the black stuff as much as we were Thrashers. But I was taking things very, very serious at this period. More serious than many others did maybe. I was completely into it, always looking for the darkest stuff. I liked DARKTHRONE a lot with their „Under a Funeral Moon“ album. This was very influential to me. Also BURZUM was a highlight, ‘cause it was so special in it´s riffing combining melancholic aura. We soaked up everything, even some obscure demo´s or 7”.

5. “Stormbrniger” seems to underline your own way when it comes to music and position on the metal scene. There was a statement on the release that wimps and poser should leave the scene and that the minialbum is dedicated to your own fanclub Hellbangers Moselkranken. Did you have any problems with a more radical/extreme part of the scene, the black metal one mostly? What was the response on this paricular release?

As I said earlier, we just tried to distance ourselves from that trendwave, which was getting bigger and bigger. It was clrear that this would blow in pieces one day. We had ever seen us as an older band with a history rooted in the end 80´s. So we just wanted to point out that we are not a completely new band.

I guess even the BM-Hardliners respected us as a old band, cause everyone who saw us in real could see that we were completely serious, not any kiddies.

Yes, we fixed an own position in that whole circus back then. When we were playing live there were 3 or 4 bands before us who just played blast-beats the whole time, so the audience was finally taken away from that when we entered the stage, playing real riffs, with real rhythms to bang your heads to. The live-set mostly ended with a cover, for a long period this was „Tormentor“  by KREATOR. We presented a good mixture to the audience, not just fast stuff the whole time. I think we became in a way famous for that, so the live shows became better and better. We´ve grown a lot with that as a unity. Years later, at the time of „Tyrants of the Netherworld“ we were nearly perfect in that. It´s the image as a band, as a whole. A band has to be a unity on stage, otherwise it´s just like 4 guys playing some instruments.

6. You were the author of Desaster’s lyrics during the period you were in the band. You seemed to share the passion towards the dark side of the medieval aesthetics that Infernal had and still have. What themes/sources from that specific area inspired you mostly when writing lyrics for “Stormbringer”?

We have a lot of castles here in our area, which was always a great source of inspiration. Aside from band-things we were meeting there from time to time just to soak up the aura. So this surly was a huge inspiration to be put into the lyrics, as well as historical myths or simply black aggressive „hate-stuff“. You know, we were young and really wild, metal was around us 24/7. We wanted to distance us from the „normal“ society as much as possible, being metal outlaws, but being proud about that, haha.

7. When it comes to the vocals itself. What where your most favourite singers, those and had any special inpact on you and they way you shaped your voice?

On the fist recodings I started with more black metal-like vocals but I realized that there are simply too much singers in that, to get an own identity. So I tried to bring in more and more of my own voice into it. One can hear that with each release I think.

For sure I always like Quorthon’s voice and the dirty raw expression in it. Later Nocturno Culto made it perfect on „Under a Funeral Moon “ but also Cronos was great, early Tom Araya, Evil Chuck, Jeff Becerra, Stace Sheepdog. So as you see, one can just learn from the best!

With the years, I think, I found my mixture of raw extreme vocals in combination with my own voice and higher screams. Also important were all those „uuh´s“ and „ahh´s“ which were mostly a homage to the 80´s. It all had to be still natural, not in a wannabe way. Many guys sounded very extreme on their records in the 90´s, but seeing them live, they lost their voice after 2 songs, so it all was faked. I never got problems with that. So the people at the gigs realized that we were 100% serious in doing what we did.

8. You started to play live more and more, cloud you share any gig stories/ tour stories from that time? Infernal told me, while talking about “Hellfire’s Dominion” that is was a great adventure despite many problems.

Yes, gigs were always an adventure so to say, hahaha. You know, when we started, we were driving hundreads of kilometers in our little VW-Polos completly full of stuff. Mostly me and Odin were sitting on the backseat and we had a Guitar-case on our legs for a trip of 400-500km. Music from cassette-player (mix-tapes mostly) was always playing, 4 guys smoking into this car and it could happen that we were drinking the first beer at noon during the driving. The difference, in my opinion, in comparison many other bands today, is that we lived this thing 100%. With the feeling that no one could stop us. Many guys today are simply to „nice“ for that I think, haha. There was no real organisation, most gigs were organized by other fans. We were just sleeping somewhere in the dirt, but happy to have played a good gig and meeting other great metal-guys.

The gigs made us a unity and we became more comfortable in our playing with each gig. It could happen that we had to sleep in a backstage room or on the stage itself, after a trip of 400km, gig playing, partying the whole night until 4:00-5:00 o´clock, then driving home 400-500km the other day. This was just normal. A total chaos but in the end it made us stronger and stronger as a real band. We had suffered the dirt and all the difficulties a band could get through, as well as shitty clubs or soundwise chaos. So waht else should come after that?

Years later in the times of „Tyrants...“ we were able to play as a headliner with getting 300-400 (at times more) people, which was very good for that time. So after working so hard for many years we were seeing that something is returning to us, you know, we putting so much energy in that.

9. “The Swords will Never Sink” and “Sacrilege” are my favourite songs from “Stormbrniger”. Could you share with me the story behind both songs and tell me which ones are your favourite and which you prefered more to perform live?

There were just dark myths, like for example in the title-track, where the Stormbringer is a warrior of revenge. „The swords...“ is more about regaining back our land, which has a heathen/ germanic tradition, from before the chains of christianity. „Sacrilege“ is just a straight „blasphemic“ lyric, which is about the fact that we don´t accept any holy indoctrinated rules of the church and destroy the chains of slavery while having our own believe, so to say. Many times it was this theme of breaking shackles of the christian laws of the church, keeping the people down as eternal sinners instead of full human beeings with own powers and inelligence. Oh, I ilked them all. We had a good repertoire with that, some faster, some thrashy... Good bangers which the audience liked a lot! The strenght was that one song not sounded like the other. 

10. There is a cover  Kreator’s “Tormentor”. Why you have decided on this one? Were you all fans of this cult band? Seems old Kreator stuff was always with you during 90s.

As I said in the beginning of the interview, KREATOR´s „Endless Pain“ started a phase of re-dicovering in the mid 90´s for us, when the BM-trend became so huge and we were really, really fed up with seeing all those countless young bands jumping on that. Even many bands who started as Death Metal went into a BM-outfit later.

So playing such cover by the old Thrash Metal heroes was more like a bit of an anti-trend thing, showing where this music is rooted and what is our personal fave-stuff at that time. We played that song for a long period. That was the very last title, people were totally full of sweat and a bit tired, but activated all their powers once again for this one to scream along with me into the microphone. A better end of a show one couldn´t have. Infernal was wearing often a „Pleasure to kill“shirt on stage and also got the huge backpatch on his vest. „Pleasure to kill“ is still one of the best Thrash Metal albums ever done. It´s wild, raw, that aggressive outcome was also a huge inspiration for us. So you see, KREATOR was alsways with us in a way. Later resulted in a guest appearance of Mille.

11. “Stormbringer” introduced your new drummer back then – Stefan “Tormentor” Huskens. How it turned out that he was to replace Thorim and you got to know each other?

Thorim was a very young, talented drummer, but he was a bit unhappy with the whole gig-thing, driving hundreads of kilometers and so on. He had another musical background which he wanted to follow instead of all the chaos and the extreme people he met with DESASTER, haha. It was a real loss at that time, cause he had a great talent. Then Tormentor returned, who was  a friend of the band for years. He had helped us out in demo times, so after really improving a lot, he was the first decision for the position of our drummer. The fact that we were all friends before made things much easier. He brought in a lot of his energy for creating a new rehaersal room, organising gigs or recording stuff. He was hungry for rehearsing every day, so that man was the right guy for us.

12. Around that time you have also issued the 7’’ “Ride on for Revenge”. There was another cool artwork and great songs. Why you have decided to issue this EP. Were the songs written especially for this release not to be published anywhere else?

Looking back now I regret a bit, putting 2 of our best titles just on a 7”. We should have put this on an regular album,’ cause they simply would have reached more attention. But at this time there were tons of releases by bands popping out, which were never in the underground. They never released a demo or a 7”, but were pushed by huge labels directly into the magazines. We, on the other hand, were rooted strongly in the underground. So releasing such a single was a bit like a statement against all the fashion, the huge advertisments all these bands getting into the magazines and the way they were hyped by the media, coming from nowhere.

As you see, as the time passed,  no one talks about most of them, nor the labels anymore. But the underground with it´s vinyl-hunters is still there. Yes the songs were written exclusively for the release. We were in good shape and one can hear that we improved a lot. They would fit well to the „Hellfire´s Dominion“ material as well, but that became another chapter.

interview by: Przemysław Bukowski

sobota, 2 kwietnia 2022

Trupi Swąd - Nekromancja (Putrid Cult 2022)

Przyznam, że na pierwszy, pełny album Trupiego Swądu czekałem bardzo. Demo "W Imię Diabła" było nader obiecujące, było czymś na swój sposób świeżym w staroszkolnym graniu, nową kombinacją wpływów i inspiracji. Dalej mamy nawiązania do brzmień pierwszych ekstremalnych ekip z lat 90. i rasowy speed/black/thrash metal. "Nekromancja" to kocioł, w którym wymieszano atmosferę starego Mercyful Fate (zwłaszcza intro wprowadza ten klimat), chwytliwość W.A.S.P., bluźnierstwo i agresję Sarcofago oraz estetykę Kata z czasów "666". No czysta poezja dla metalowych purystów, hehe! Tak, Trupi Swąd to bezpośrednie, surowe metalowe granie, które nie ogląda się na jakąkolwiek poprawność. Pierwszy album Trupiego Swądu to muzyka metalowego buntu, bardzo kojarzy mi się właśnie z pierwszą płytą Kata, debiutem Sarcofago, a nawet gdzieś tam z "Kawalerią Szatana" Turbo. Ma w sobie ducha tych materiałów. Trup się ściele, leje się krew, wykluwają się bestie, wszelkie bluźnierstwo wyrzucane jest z tekstów niczym pociski z karabinu maszynowego . Oczywiście nie brakuje nawiązań do Pierwszej Fali spod znaku Venom, wczesnego Sodom czy Bathory. Może nie jest to tak ewidentnie słyszalne z każdej strony, ale te zespoły też w tych kompozycjach siedzą. To po prostu kwintesencja starego, diabelskiego metalu! Nie przeszkadza tu nawet zaprogramowana perkusja, bo została zrobiona na tyle dobrze, że nie kłuje w uszy. Płyta pierwsza klasa - brać i słuchać!



English translation:

I admit that I was waiting a lot for the first full-length album by Trupi Swąd. The demo "W Imię Diabła" was very promising, it was something fresh in its own way in oldschool playing, a new combination of influence and inspiration. Still we have references to the sounds of the first extreme bands from the 90s and pure speed/black/thrash metal. "Nekromancja" is a cauldron in which the atmosphere of the old Mercyful Fate (especially the intro introduces this), the catchiness of W.A.S.P., the blasphemy and aggression of Sarcofago and the aesthetics of the Kat from the time of "666" is mixed. Well, something totally for metal purists, haha! Yes, Trupi Sąd is direct, raw metal playing that doesn't seem care about any rules. The first album of Trupy Swąd is the music of metal rebellion, I associate it very much with the first album of Kat, the debut of Sarcofago, and even somewhere with "Kawaleria Szatana" by Turbo. It has the spirit of these materials. The corpse is setting the ground, the blood is spilling, the beasts emerge, all blasphemy strikes from the lyrics like bullets from a machine gun. Of course, there are also references to the First Wave under the sign of Venom, early Sodom or Bathory. Maybe it is not so evidently heard from all sides, but these bands are also hiding in these compositions. It's just the quintessence of old devil metal! Even the programmed percussion does not bother here, because it was made so well that it doesn't hurt your ears. First class stuff - grab it and listen!